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This Time With Music

This Time With Music

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This should have been yesterday’s post. But yesterday I hadn’t yet watched a televised recording of what I witnessed in person the evening before, albeit from a distance.

It’s been our habit lately to watch the 4th of July fireworks on D.C.’s mall — the same ones that appear in living rooms across the land — from a ridge in Arlington, across the Potomac. While this provides a hassle-free and far-off glimpse at the gorgeous display, it doesn’t supply a soundtrack. 

I got that yesterday, when I took in the replay of what I watched live Tuesday night. This time there were no toddlers jumping on and off my lap, but there was Renee Fleming singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and the National Symphony playing “1812 Overture.” 

It was fireworks with music. It was what I’d been missing.

The Lady Vanishes?

The Lady Vanishes?

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When I was in New York last month I snapped a photo of Lady Liberty from the High Line. The sky was hazy (though not smoke-filled), and you could barely make out the statue’s distinctive profile. (Zoom in and look to the right of the gray girder to see the vague form hoisting her torch.)

As I thought about what to say this morning, I remembered snapping this shot, thought it might have a certain metaphorical significance: the lady vanishes, the statue so far away that it’s almost not there at all. 

Don’t we feel that way sometimes about our country, about its ideas and ideals, that we’ve forgotten what unites us in our fights over what divides us? 

The trick, I think, is to do what we can as citizens to keep alive its founding principles: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Tolerance, too. 

Summer and Smoke

Summer and Smoke

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For me and for many, summer is a recharging season. A lot of the recharging occurs outdoors. Whether it’s walking the trails, writing on the deck, or dining al fresco, summertime is outside time.

But not this summer. This summer I check my phone first. This morning the air quality index is 153, Code Red. So I’ll write from my office and exercise in the basement. There are plenty of indoor projects — cleaning up decades worth of clutter, for starters. 

I won’t be idle. But I won’t be happy. 

And yet … it’s the way many of the world’s people live everyday, without the privilege of working at (and inside) the home. Missing summer is the least of their concerns. I’ll keep them in mind today.

(Summer in the city, where there was no smoke last week. A tip of the hat to Tennessee Williams for the post title.)

Dads and Babies

Dads and Babies

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On this day of dads, I’m thinking about babies, too, especially one particular baby who is napping upstairs. In fact, it’s only because she’s napping that I’m able to write this post.

On this day of all days, fathers and babies naturally belong together.  Dads (and grandpas) have a way of jostling, tossing, blowing on tummies and just generally making an infant’s day. 

I’m sure this infant would agree. 

As the Smoke Clears

As the Smoke Clears

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As the smoke clears, there are shadows once again, and colors, not just a haze of gray. 

As the smoke clears, the outdoors comes into its own, a place to walk and talk and read, not scenery on the other side of glass. 

As the smoke clears, children walk to the school bus. Later they’ll gather by the basketball goal and rope swing to play.

There will be dinners al fresco, dogs barking, the neighbor yelling at his sports team through an open window— small wonders made possible by a shift in the wind, a passing shower. 

Memorial Day Movie

Memorial Day Movie

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I briefly tried watching the National Memorial Day concert last evening before switching to the Memorial Day Marathon on Turner Classic Movies, where I found a film I’d never heard of called “Hell to Eternity.”

This 1960 movie tells the true story of Guy Gabaldon, a Marine who was raised by a Japanese family and who singlehandedly and peacefully took 1,500 prisoners on Saipan, aided by the Japanese language he learned as a child. 

It’s a rare film that depicts the incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps during the war and features Japanese actors playing Japanese characters. Also, while there are plenty of combat scenes, the movie ultimately glorifies not the fighting but our common humanity. 

Not a bad way to see in Memorial Day 2023. 

(From left, actor Jeffrey Hunter, the real Guy Gabaldon, and actor David Janssen from the set of the film “Hell to Eternity,” courtesy TCM.)

Endangered Radio

Endangered Radio

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“How long till Tucumcari?” 

“Why is it so hot back here?”

And … “Can you turn up the radio?”

These aren’t my children’s comments about long-distance travel; they’re my own. Or at least what can I remember of the cross-country travel my brothers and sister and I took as kids. 

We were stuffed into the backseat and nether regions of the old “woody” station wagon and driven more than two thousand miles, from Lexington, Kentucky to Hollywood, California, and other western destinations. The view out our windows was priceless: forests and grasslands, mountain and prairie, red rocks and cactus; the whole continent unfolding before us. And the soundtrack of our travels? AM Radio.

That’s going to change soon, according to a report in the Washington Post. Some automakers are already omitting AM Radio from their electric vehicles’ dashboards. And Ford is eliminating AM radio entirely.

There have been protests from station owners, first responders, listeners and politicians of all stripes (it’s a rare bipartisan issue), saying that the move may spell the end of AM radio entirely. 

I don’t listen to much AM radio — until I’m on a long-distance car trip. And then I tune into these staticky stations to catch the weather, oldies and talk. AM stations give you a taste of the places you’re driving through.  I’m sorry to hear that, like so much that is local and authentic, they’re endangered, too.

Potential

Potential

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It’s a day for flowers, for corsages and nosegays. And at my house, it’s a day to admire the climbing rose, poised to begin its spring show. 

The buds are primed, some have popped, others are ready to.

It’s also, then, a day to celebrate potential. For Mom, who always believed in our potential. And for my daughters, whose potential I was privileged to see, treasure and help shape, for all that lies ahead for them. 

Happy 100th!

Happy 100th!

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Today would have been Dad’s 100th birthday. He missed it by a little over nine years. I like to think he would have reveled in the day.

A milestone that once seemed impossible to reach is no longer such a feat. I’ve known a couple of centenarians and a slew of nonagenarians. Dad was briefly one of them, almost 91 when he passed away. 

The last time Dad was at our house, he loosened his tie, grabbed his cane and took to the dance floor. It’s a good way to remember him on his birthday … or any day.

Of Roses and Crowns

Of Roses and Crowns

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Over the weekend, a day bracketed by rituals. One ancient, the other “only” 149 years old. 

I woke up at 6 a.m., early enough to catch much of the coronation of King Charles III.  The choirs, the sixth-century prayer book, the procession, the golden carriage. A glimpse into the Middle Ages.

And then, at 6 p.m., the Kentucky Derby, with its come-from-behind, 15-1 shot Mage. More rituals: the call to post, the starting bell, the breathless commentary of the Run for the Roses. 

We measure our lives by rituals and routines, but I’ve seldom experienced such an oddly juxtaposed and striking pair of them.

(Photo of King Edward’s crown courtesy Wikipedia)